


relative distance between the sun and the earth

by thosewhowant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drugs, His Last Vow, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Suicidal Ideation, The Abominable Bride, particularly the obliquity of the ecliptic, post-tab, potential misunderstanding of science, sherlock POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosewhowant/pseuds/thosewhowant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The obliquity of the ecliptic is the inclination of the earth's axis to the celestial plane. Put simply, the tilt of the earth determines the seasons.<br/>John is the sun and Sherlock orbits him and it is never balanced anymore, it is either scorching searing summer or frigid winter, everything or nothing.</p><p>---</p><p>The tarmac through Sherlock's eyes, and a conversation back at Baker Street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	relative distance between the sun and the earth

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic, so I hope you all like it!  
> A few things: I have no medical knowledge whatsoever, so don't take my word on anything related to Sherlock's OD in this story. This also deals with Sherlock's state of mind prior to boarding the plane, so if suicidal ideation is problematic then this might not be the story for you. Finally, I am spectacularly ignorant when it comes to astronomy (or really, science in general), so I apologize in advance for that.  
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

The obliquity of the ecliptic is the inclination of the earth's axis to the celestial plane. Put simply, the tilt of the earth determines the seasons.

John is the sun and Sherlock orbits him and it is never balanced anymore, it is either scorching searing summer or frigid winter, everything or nothing.

\---

The world is morphine-muddled by the time the sleek black car pulls up to the tarmac, not that anyone around him can tell. Sherlock is careful to present the arrogant facade that John surely is expecting, keeps his coat collar up - trying to look cool - shut up - and his manner abrasive. He smiles at Mary (thank god for the morphine thank god for the morphine) and glares at Mycroft, whose raised eyebrows indicate that he expects something of note to occur. A cross between Casablanca and a deathbed confession, the latter more literal than even Mycroft knows.

But the stark fact that this is the last time he will ever see John Watson weakens Sherlock's impression of an aloof 007. He'd like to blame it on the insidious deadly cocktail winding through his veins but John has always had this effect on him, always pulled him closer to humanity, and when he realizes his eyes are soft and his face too open all he can do is avert his eyes and drop his chin.

Their last conversation is a tragedy of missed glances and unspoken confessions, two years too late.

"To the very best of times, John." 

A handshake, held a beat too long. The tachycardia can surely be blamed on the drugs.

And then he is the one who breaks their tenuous connection and ducks into the plane, because this is how it must end: with John happy. John unaware that this is a suicide mission. John unaware that Sherlock has taken the first word to heart. John, whose smile rushes through his veins like sunlight and molten gold, more intoxicating than a seven percent solution.

John, who loves someone else.

Sherlock ignores the safety precautions that the flight attendant is so earnestly demonstrating - how deliciously ironic it would be if they were needed - and pats his suit jacket covertly. It reminds him of going to collect the letters from Magnusson - the engagement ring - the look of betrayal on John's face when he proposed to Janine - Mary - and Sherlock clenches his jaw. 

The gesture served its purpose even as it reminded him of one of his many, many failures: the list is in place, seven items written in a neat hand. One last promise kept. 

His hand trembles and his heart beats irregularly. There isn't much time.

Flagrantly ignoring the aforementioned safety instructions, Sherlock pulls up John's blog on his phone as the plane accelerates. 

"If you were dying, what would your last thought be?" he had asked, once upon a time.

He at least had the luxury of planning his last moments. The promise to Mycroft fulfilled. The hug to Mary, which should console John and convince him to move on. 

But that pales in comparison, fades into the morphine fog and cocaine tremors, when compared with this. The last words he reads will be John's first blog entry about Sherlock (back when Sherlock was someone to be admired, back when there was an us).

The last word on his tongue, filling his mouth with the bitterness of regret and the warmth of the sun, will be John.

Sherlock leans his head against the window as the plane lifts into the air, and waits.

\---

The earth cannot function without the sun, but the sun does not require the earth. If the sun burst into supernova, everything would end. If the earth ceased to exist, the sun would survive. It might not even notice.

\---

Four minutes later, there's a call.

\---

Reality blurs but the edges are scalpel-sharp and the colors headache-inducingly vivid when he opens his eyes to see Lady Carmichael? no the flight attendant, oh god - and shortly after Mary and Mycroft. John he can't look at, can't see the relief on his face that will soon be replaced with anguish and betrayal. Sherlock is agitated, defensive; he demands to go back (needs to finish what he started) but the mind palace is the least of it.

Still, something is nagging at him- two hands entwined in front of a veiled enemy, a familiar tilt of the head-

All of which is forgotten when he opens his mouth ("Don't include too many details in your lies, Sherlock, or the truth will reveal itself," Mycroft had schooled him, when Mycroft was fourteen and Sherlock was seven and adored his elder brother) and mentions a simulation, and Mycroft knows. 

"Did you make a list?" and Sherlock cannot bear to see the disappointment on John's face so he drops the list languidly on the floor and closes his eyes to hide his dilated pupils, affecting disdain when really his stomach wants to push itself through his mouth and his hands are trembling.

He cannot see the look but he feels it like a punch in the gut.

"This could kill you!"

That's the point, John. But I never wanted you to see it happen.

Reality shifts again.

\---

The earth has an innate ability to self-destruct. Pollution builds up in the atmosphere, clogs the oceans, poisons freshwater.

The sun shouldn't be mad at the earth for self-destructing. The sun has the rest of the universe. It doesn't need the earth.

\---

The fourth time he wakes up he is in the plane, not Victorian London or a private hospital or the Reichenbach Falls, and furthermore Sherlock feels discombobulated and absolutely terrible in a way that he didn't in the previous three realities - mouth dry, perspiring, heartbeat alternately beating out of his chest and slowing to a crawl - so he deduces that this is actually reality. Which makes the soft, concerned look on John's face after Sherlock had forgotten himself and smiled at John his sun and said "Miss me?" all the more devastating.

Mary saw it, too.

Mary.

There is one thing to be said for a potentially fatal quantity of cocaine: it made the puzzle pieces fit together in a way that sentiment bloody useless sentiment had prevented. What are the chances that a former assassin should just so happen to fall in love with John Watson?

The universe is rarely so lazy.

But Mary is here now, watching Sherlock's weakness and utter failure and he has to pull himself together right now. 

He staggers as he stands, embarrassingly, and avoids Mycroft's eyes as he blatantly avoids any more promises. Thankfully, his stride is strong and steady as John and Mary trail in his wake, and he proclaims grandly that he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next, that his overdose was for a reason.

Please, please believe it. John is not an idiot, unlike practically everyone, but he can't bear to think of his star dimming in John's eyes until he is no longer "Amazing" or "Incredible" or "Fantastic!"

Too late, in all likelihood, but maybe if Sherlock tempts him with a case...

The drugs are obviously still in his system, even if it was apparently too small a quantity to be fatal (odd, he had measured it precisely), because the case he tempts John with is Moriarty's return: a case which will, inevitably, force John to confront the fact that his wife, the woman he chose over Sherlock, used to work for Moriarty.

Still does, in fact.

Sod it all, Sherlock thinks to himself during the spectacularly uncomfortable ride back to Baker Street. Mycroft sits up front, conferring quietly on the phone, and John sits between Mary and Sherlock in the back. He can feel the vitriol behind Mary's cooed concerns, and it isn't helped by John holding his wrist and taking his pulse every few moments. He is paying more attention to his junkie friend than his pregnant wife (is she really, though? He deduced it from symptoms that she could have easily faked), and she is quietly furious as she rubs her belly. Sherlock's heart rate jumps every time John touches him with competent hands, and he cannot bear to look John in the eye.

He rests his head against the window like he had on the plane, thirty minutes and a lifetime ago, and waits for John to begin to hate him.

\---

"Do you understand it?"

"The obliquity of the ecliptic?"

"The murderous jealousy."

Yes, God help him, he does. He would commit murder or tear himself apart to keep John.

Do anything but cause him harm.

\---

John exits the car along with Sherlock at Baker Street. Sherlock starts, surprised, but the look John gives him makes his protestations stick in his throat and his mouth close obediently. He can see hurt alongside the anger and can't bring himself to push John away, not when he took a turn for the worse five minutes ago and is almost swaying on the pavement outside 221B. He shuts the door decisively, without looking at Mycroft or Mary.

"Upstairs," John orders, the soft volume at odds with the command in his voice. Sherlock sniffs and lifts his chin before obeying. His plan to prove his good health by bounding up the stairs two at a time per usual fails rather spectacularly when he trips over the seventeenth step.

John grabs his elbow. "Easy there," he says. 

His touch ignites every overly sensitive nerve and ripples like fire through his arm. It isn't unpleasant.

He'll hate you when he knows runs through his head, and he tugs his arm free before entering their - his - apartment and curling up in a sulky ball in his chair. Unlike the last time he struck this pose, stinking from a night in a drug den and pining, John's chair is in front of him, where John now sits and proffers a glass of water.

"Drink this. You need fluids," he says, the most he has spoken since the tarmac, and he sounds sad now, the anger faded to a subtle bass. Does he see Sherlock as someone to be pitied now?  
Sherlock can't bear the thought and sits up defiantly, murmuring a quiet "Thank you" for the water.

It is cool but it flows down his throat like concrete and suddenly he is angry, furious, that John is here and silent and looking at him like that, like he actually cares, but just as quickly it melts into a quiet resignation. If John is going to hate him, he needs it to happen now, not after hours of caregiving that will trick Sherlock into thinking that John might return even a tenth of the affection Sherlock feels.

"There's something you need to know, and you aren't going to like it," he says, the hopelessness bleeding through, he can tell by the way that John look more concerned for him than by what he has to say.

"It can wait, Sherlock. You just, Jesus, you just OD'd, whatever it is can wait," he says, and reaches for Sherlock's wrist once more.

Sherlock yanks it away. "No," he says, more insistently. "You're going to leave, when I'm done, and I'll be fine - I've gone through this before, and Mycroft can kidnap a specialist if I need a doctor, which I don't, by the way - but I'd rather you leave now."

Oddly enough, there is a glimpse of something that looks like hope on John's face before it smooths out. He nods, slightly. "First of all: you've done this before? That's a conversation we're having in the future. I doubt I'll leave, whatever it is. But tell me, if it's so important."

Sherlock takes a deep breath and prepares for the hatred of the only person he has ever loved. "Mary is not who you think she is."

"I thought we'd established by now that she's an assassin." John looks endearingly confused and Sherlock's heart twists. He's blaming the tachycardia again.

"She worked for Moriarty," he says flatly, looking past John.

John says nothing. Speechless with anger?

Sherlock looks, and John's face is still confused. Still sinking in, then.

"She worked for Moriarty," he repeats, helplessly, and when there's still no response he babbles on. "I'm fairly convinced that she still is - and really, she might even be Moriarty, it's obviously a title, although I can't figure out her motivations in that case - but still."

He breaks off, and John still looks confused.

Sherlock shuts his eyes, leans back into the chair. "You can go now," he adds, intending to sound dismissive but his voice sounds desolate even to his own ears. "But please, believe me. I don't want you to be hurt."

"Sherlock," John finally says, his tone unreadable. "Sherlock, look at me."

Sherlock ignores him.

A hand reaches out and grabs his wrist, tugging him forward. "Sherlock," John says again, and this time he sounds angry. "You're telling me, you're actually telling me-"

He shuts his eyes even tighter. Goodbye, then.

"You didn't know?" John finishes, and Sherlock's eyes open at that, astonished.

"You - wait - Mary - what?" is what tumbles out of his mouth, leagues away from the aloof demeanor he had cultivated.

John looks just as startled as him. "She tried to kill you, Sherlock. It was pretty much a dead giveaway. You - how did you, of all people, not know?"

The worst part is that Sherlock knows the answer to that question. "You," he starts, and his breath is caught in his throat and he forces the rest of it out around gritted teeth, "chose her."

"Well, yes. Before she shot-" and Sherlock can hear the penny drop. "Oh."

"Sentiment," Sherlock sneers, caught between humiliation and disgrace and physically unable to remove himself from the room at this point. "The grit in the lens, the fly in the ointment, I should have seen it, it was so bloody obvious this whole time - but you knew, and you went back to her-"

"No," John commands, "no, just stop it. Listen to me, for once in your bloody life-"

"I always listen to you," Sherlock spits before realizing what he has done. His mouth seals in a straight line.

"Well, then," he says, gentler now, "just listen. I chose you. I chose you such a long time ago, before you faked your death, even. We were in something before you died, and it was horribly unspoken and maddening and I wouldn't have left it for all the world. And I was so lonely, so desperate, that I just wanted someone to make me less lonely, and that was Mary. A great reason to propose, yeah? And I was so angry when you came back. God, just, so angry. And I still don't know the half of it, but I doubt it was playing hide and seek, like I said that once. So, I'm sorry about that."

He takes a deep breath and continues. "I thought I could love her. I think I did, before you came back, and then you - and it was like the world had color and life again. And your best man's speech. God, I. I hate that we couldn't have had that conversation before, couldn't have even had a drunken stag night shag, because then I would have told you. But I'm a coward, so I didn't."

John's hand tightens around Sherlock's wrist, where he's vaguely realizing it has been for the past several minutes. "And then she shot you." John almost smiles with the force of his rage. "And you thought that I could love her after that? I may not be as smart as you, but I put a few pieces together. It's not a coincidence that I married an assassin or that she tried to kill you."

He looks into Sherlock's eyes, steady as he has always been, exuding his own gravitational force that reels Sherlock in and anchors him. "Listen to me: I will always, always choose you."

Sherlock blinks, and the drugs have finally broken down his shields and his ability to prevaricate, and he knows that John can read every thought on his face.

Carefully, giving John every opportunity to pull away, he turns the wrist that John is holding over so he loosely grasps the back of John's hand. John looks at him as he turns his own hand over and runs his thumb over Sherlock's knuckles, and Sherlock feels his eyes sting, to his abject horror.

"Together, then?" Sherlock says eventually, still cradling John's hand.

John nods.

"Together."

\---

But maybe, just as the earth needs the sun to live, the sun needs to provide that gift of light and heat. It needs the reason to live, not just the ability.

Maybe together they constitute a perfect solar system.


End file.
